He really is acting in an odd way. This is really out of line for him to do this.

Bill Clinton in Oregon denigrates DNC rules, says Florida did no wrong.

The former president is dissing the party rules. That is just plain wrong.

Hope the html works on the link.

At Google, there are two million references to "the end of civilization as we know it."

I'm number 8.

There are 1.2 million references to "snuggle music."

I'm number one.

Thanks jc.

Obama/Dean 08
Fast, Long Lasting Relief
For the Fierce Urgency of Now!

How did you digitize your high school yearbook picture?

just how bad the past eight years have been, Michael.

I'm of two minds about Moore's project (a comment actually related to the thread post ... LOL):  (a) I wish that it could have been released before November 2008 and (b) I believe that it's probably just as well that it won't be because Moore seems to bring out a lot of raging RW crazies in all their froth, who then just might be inspired to vote for McInsane.

Perhaps it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, especially when those dogs are rabid. 

China quake toll soars as full horror begins to emerge

14/05/2008 06h16

DUJIANGYAN (AFP) - The full horror of the devastating China earthquake began to emerge Wednesday as rescuers discovered whole towns all but wiped off the map, pushing the death toll well above 20,000.

Military and police teams punched into the heart of the disaster zone, with 100 troops parachuting into a county that was previously cut off while planes and helicopters air-dropped emergency supplies.

But the message that came back from this mountainous corner of southwestern Sichuan province was that town after town was flattened by the 7.9-magnitude quake that struck two days ago.

The death toll has soared well above 20,000, but that toll is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities.

"The losses have been severe," Wang Yi, who heads an armed police unit sent into the epicentre zone, was quoted as saying by Sichuan Online news site.

[...]

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/newsmlmmd.2f1331cbe37ceeaba1bc63b229e85e2e.601.html

she's been looking rather unhinged lately.  More so than usual ... and putting her foot firmly in her mouth, as with her recent comments on Myanmar's tragedy.

The Tone-Deaf *Decider* is off to follow Clueless Condi in yet another meaningless grandstand play to look like he's actually doing something productive ... or that he actually cares. 

Neither is true.  But Laura is going along ... and we are footing the bill for this charade.

And *balance?*  Methinks not.

==============

Bush kicks off Mideast tour amid regional turmoil

14/05/2008 07h14

JERUSALEM (AFP) - US President George W. Bush flies into Israel on Wednesday where he hopes to push ahead with Middle East peace efforts while marking the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.

But renewed turmoil in the region bodes ill for the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that have produced little tangible progress since they were revived at a conference hosted by Bush in November following a seven-year hiatus.

His Middle East trip takes place against a backdrop of violence in Lebanon that he has blamed on Syria and Iran, and defiance from Hamas over conditions for a truce in the embattled and besieged Gaza Strip.

The US president will also visit Saudi Arabia to mark 75 years of US relations with the oil-rich kingdom, and hold talks in Egypt with regional leaders, including Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

But he will not visit the Palestinian territories during his trip, which comes as Palestinians commemorate the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who lost their homes and their land when Israel was created in May 1948.

[...]

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/newsmlmmd.945bc3be3f76784c16ff9d12f0a60ebf.e51.html

And his blinders are clearly OFF ... as they should be for ALL journalists.

He sets exactly the right tone for the latest *Co boondoggle.

=============

The Opposite of a Victory Lap

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com

Tuesday, May 13, 2008; 1:18 PM

President Bush heads off to the Middle East today for a five-day tour through a political landscape of false predictions and broken promises.

Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush has a faulty calendar and questionable optimism when it comes to the Middle East. By his original reckoning, an elusive peace should have happened three years ago and a democratic Palestinian state should now be living in harmony with longtime enemy Israel.

"That was the hopeful timetable prescribed in the 2003 Mideast strategy known as the 'road map.'

"Of course, it did not happen. ..."

[...]

"Jon B. Alterman, the director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, offered an especially bleak assessment.

"'It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now,' Mr. Alterman said. 'The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable. U.S. power and influence are at low ebb in the region. The Bush administration is beset by challenges -- the combination of a faltering economy, persistent difficulties in Iraq and a growing threat from Iran -- all at a time that the president's popularity is at a historical low, and his administration is settling more and more into lame duck status.'"

[All these *challenges* are, of course, direct results of *Co's own stupid, short-sighted, and outright criminal foreign policy choices or, as in the case of Iran, products of their fondest wet dreams. JfD]

[...]

[One bright spot ... even Israel is beginning to realize how mistaken they were to encourage ... and let themselves be led by RW US neocons ... in the removal of Saddam Hussein, so the US has lost both prestige and credibility even there.  Any sane person could predict this from the outset  Many, in fact, did.. JfD]

"Meanwhile, the Israeli defense establishment is having second thoughts about Bush's decision to remove Saddam Hussein and the botched occupation of Iraq. Those policies, some argue, have helped fuel the rise of Israel's nemesis, Iran, whose president has spoken openly of trying to wipe Israel off the map. The war has also threatened to destabilize neighboring Jordan with a flood of refugees."

[...]   

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/05/13/BL2008051301376_pf.html

with his usual round-up of ME items.

It's an extremely circuitous corner that we keep rounding in Iraq.

=============

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

11 Killed, 20 Wounded in Sadr City;

that we in the US hardly ever see, check out this multimedia series in The Guardian (UK, of course) for the human faces trying desperately to survive in the world's largest concentration camp. 

Our role in this is inexcusable from any humanitarian viewpoint, no matter what excuse, as have been so many of our actions in these past eight years. 

And so it goes ...

================

A week in Gaza

This week George Bush flies to the Middle East in another effort to revive peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

But the one subject that won't be on their agenda is Gaza, the small, overcrowded strip of land sliding ever deeper into economic catastrophe.

All this week the Guardian reports on the effects of the crisis on the ordinary people of Gaza.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/aweekingaza

*Co just keeps racking them up.

========

Mysterious Arctic whale under threat from changing habitat

Edward Helmore  Tuesday May 13 2008

Polar bears may get more attention – and later this week a
court-ordered decision by the US government will almost certainly see
them listed as a threatened species – but new research suggests the narwhal, the mysterious whale with a long spiral tusk, may be more at risk from climatic change. Researchers fear that the narwhal is so attuned to its environment, so narrow in its range of habitat and specific in diet, that it may be one of the least able of Arctic mammals to adapt to rapid warming in the high north.

Unlike the polar bear, which is widely distributed in the circumpolar region, the narwhal population is concentrated in a relatively small area between Baffin Island and Greenland. With a small population of no more than 80,000 individuals, narwhals stick closely to established migratory patterns and are more narrowly distributed than the two other Arctic whales, the bowhead and beluga.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/13/endangeredspecies.endangeredhabitats/print

this is one that I have to post.  R.I.P. Nuala!

============

'She gave a voice to Irish women'
Nuala O'Faolain, whose visceral writing about love, politics and depression helped to define modern-day Ireland, died last week. Her friend June Caldwell pays tribute to a feminist titan
Wednesday May 14, 2008

The Guardian

In May 1997, I stood in a delicatessen in the small snobbish suburb of Ranelagh, in Dublin, wracking my brain to imagine what a successful writer would eat for breakfast. I was a journalism student on my way to interview Nuala O'Faolain, whose first book, Are You Somebody?, had topped the country's bestseller list for months - beating a much-tipped biography of Michael Collins. While Collins was a historic figure who had either saved Ireland or ruined it, depending on your opinion, the Irish public seemed more interested in reading about the loves and disappointments of a middle-aged Irish woman who, despite her evident success as a writer, felt she had achieved very little.

When Nuala tumbled down the stairs to meet me, a total stranger, her hair was soaking, her eyes full of tears. I didn't feel confident that my freshly baked soda bread and gourmet marmalade had been the right choice.

"What's this stuff?" she asked, looking me up and down. "Here!" she thumped the bag into my chest. "You look like you live in a bedsit; take it back with you." She flung eight sausages into a frying pan with some oil. "I'm vegetarian," I told her. "Vegetarians are terrifically deluded and usually a bit mad," she replied.

[...]

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2279714,00.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress14-2008may14,0,3175806.story?track=rss

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/grandrapids

He does make sense sometimes.

Hillary would add no votes to Obama, she would dog his campaign with scandal, she would be disloyal in office, and her husband would be, at best, a huge distraction. Case closed.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/no_veep_slot_for_hillary.html

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080511_taking_a_stand_against_war/?ln

Either directly or through proxy, the administration has painted a one-sided portrait of Iran which is inaccurate and misleading in the extreme. To have a nation of nearly 80 million people, possessing a history and culture several thousands of years old, suddenly personified in the image of a single individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a gross misrepresentation. Imagine if one tried to characterize the entire American people in the form of George W. Bush. Iran is a diverse nation, with numerous political and social constituencies which compete across a broad spectrum of forums, governmental and nongovernmental alike. To take the words and deeds of one man, out of context in some cases and inaccurately in others, and use them to paint a picture of national policy is as wrong as it is deceitful. 

Iran today poses no threat to the American nation, its allies (including Israel) or American troops in the region. To the extent that U.S. service members are threatened in Iraq, one must consider the reality of a genuine popular resistance by Iraqis to a brutal and illegitimate occupation. It should also be noted that Iran is primarily interested in securing a stable Iraq in the post-Saddam period, a policy requiring Iran to back the current Iraqi government, a Shiite-dominated government which the United States helped empower and which the United States currently supports. 

An elderly white gentleman at Barack's Town Hall Meeting in Cape Girardeau, Missouri stated he was for Barack before Iowa, knew that Barack would bring sunshine to the White House - did my heart good to hear that.

Barack was fantastic at this meeting. IMHO this is when he is at his best. He is genuine.

One of his daughters was born on the 4th of July, how cool is that.

Meeting was replayed on CSPAN this morning.

The Illinois Senator picks up Democrats Abroad Chair Christine Schon Marques and Indiana Rep. Pete Visclosky

http://thepage.time.com/

I've come to admire the zeal and dedication of Clinton supporters in this race but their stupidity has become awkward. Proving to the voting public that you will ignore any rule and dispose of any scruple necessary to obtain the nomination by whatever means allow it is hardly an endorsement of change in politics. Rather, it's an advance announcement that Clinton's administration would conduct itself likewise after it's installed.

The arrogance implicit in the predictions of Obama's demise as a general election candidate by Clinton backers have gotten to me. If we're at liberty to make future predictions in this election, try this one: A Clinton nomination, following Obama's primary season accomplishments in popular votes, caucuses, pledged delegates, fundraising, states won, and new voter registration, will permanently end the existence of the Democratic Party in August with protests that recalling Chicago in 1968 serving serving as its funeral ceremony. It's pretty obvious that Clinton's forecasts for a victory in November will go by the board at that juncture.

New thread.

Morning Folks,

Hi Tom. I agree with you. I'm finding the Clinton campaign more and more distasteful, juvenile, and destructive all the time; while at the same time being glad that the duration has allowed people to get to know both candidates.

Surely, we can do better than this. Are we really as shallow, self aggrandizing, greedy as Clinton comes off? Probably, though I hope not.

The issues facing us are so serious, so potentially cataclysmic that what we've experienced since Reagan is more and more damaging.

Judy for Dean, interesting thought about Michael Moore's new project. I'm both in agreement and disagreement with your take on it. Yes, it will bring out the nutzos, but also, haven't we drunk the Kool-Aid for too long already? As a society we can't begin to work on the problems that face the human race, the other species, and the planet itself with the lies told over and over until they become truths by governments corrupt and self serving? Are we grown up enough to deal with realities? I'm glad you posted that because it gives me pause.

Finally, a book I'd like to recommend, The Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals by Thomas Moore, an ex monk, musician, psychotherapist, philosopher and mythologist. I heard him speak about five years ago at Naropa University in Boulder. It was quite amazing. He conducted the entire weekend intuitively without notes, books, or references of any sort, answering questions with insight and specificity.

Here's a quote I liked:

p. 16, he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian and pastor sentenced to death for participation in a plot against Hiter. "The world that has come of age is more godless, and perhaps for that very reason nearer to God, than the world before its coming of age." Moore says that what he thinks he means is that in the old days religion called on God as a power outside of life to solve our problems. Today, Bonhoeffer says, we have to face our problems directly, and having lost the option of a God coming like the calvalry frm the sky, we discover the real meaning of religion, an openness to the mysteries that are playing themselves out.

The addition of a DLC Senator as VP is not "balancing" the ticket, it's neutralizing it. We need a team where both are moving ahead in the same Progressive direction. We shouldn't be accepting a VP choice merely because someone is whining, or threatening, or because they might bring votes from a particular state. The Dems don't need that to win. We can lose if we add any DLC to the ticket to drop anchor on the momentum for change. We need Webb in the Va. Senate, and any of the DLC Senators will drag us down. Dean is the perfect
50 State match.

Obama/Dean '08